looking at the whole timekeepers' issue from a scientific perspective: between the field umpire's decision process and the uncertainty of the timekeeper pressing his clock button, there is probably as much as ±1sec uncertainty on every adjustment to the clock - that's ±2sec per stoppage. Fifteen scores and another ten to fifteen sundry stoppages in a quarter - there's a reasonable uncertainty here.
Both of the ruckuses recently were caused by the field umpire resetting the mark - since there are so many occasions (such as at boundary-throwins) where the timekeeper has to act on the play instead of the field umpire's direction, it makes sense that the timekeepers started their respective clocks when they did. The solution to this is to ensure that the field umpires are completely consistent when they blow time-off to reset the mark - and I think they generally are; of course, everybody hates it when they do it, and it continually attracts criticism of over-officiation, particularly since it gives the opposition time to flood. But this is the likely reason why they do it - to avoid lost time. Perhaps the timekeepers just need to be more aware. That was very circular, and I think I changed my opinion in the middle of it. Whatever. You catch my drift.
